


When it Rains...

by Metalkatt



Category: The Dresden Files (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-25
Updated: 2007-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:53:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27885562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metalkatt/pseuds/Metalkatt
Summary: On average, a lightning bolt contains one million kilowatts of energy.
Relationships: Bob the Skull/Harry Dresden
Kudos: 3





	When it Rains...

When you hear the words 'rain dance,' you normally think of Native Americans in buckskins and feathers heavy-stepping around a bonfire. You don’t normally think of sitting in the rain on top of a hill while a centuries-old ghost moves like a panther somewhere over to your left. Yet, that's where I was, seated on a patch of dry grass off to his right, and thanking the stars for umbrella charms. Bob was about ten feet away from me, running though the motions of whatever practice routine he used to use to keep himself svelte when he was alive. He glowed gold as the sheeting rain tumbled through his incorporeal image, and stood out even against the clouds full with reflected light.

I remember the storms we used to watch together when I was young. Even when he used them as examples for our lessons, if they got strong enough and went on long enough, there would come a point where his eyes would turn wild and fey, and his breath would come faster as the sky raged overhead. I didn't understand then what it was, how the pulse and flash of the storm stirred the memory of his blood. As it stood now, I knew that Bob hadn't gotten any for at least half a millennium, and every storm reminded him of that dearth. Badassed necromancer or no, it's still a tough break.

What I still didn't understand, though, was why he wanted to be out in it. His skull was soaking wet; as he'd asked, I'd placed it just outside the charm's radius. Of course, it wasn't far enough away that I couldn't snag it if something happened. I'm not stupid, despite what people think, and I haven't let him far out of my sight since Tara the Bob-Thief had had the gall to take him from me.

"If you don't stop that glowering," the cool tenor warned, "you're going to call down fiercer squalls." Bob has always had an odd way of being able to startle me out of my thoughts, and I've had to condition myself to not jump when he does it.

"I'm just thinking, Bob," I rebutted. "I can't figure out why you wanted to come all the way out here."

"It is impossible to properly enjoy a thunderstorm at home, Harry." Sometimes he spoke to me like I was still eleven to make a joke, and sometimes he did it to show disdain. It's still difficult to distinguish between the two at times. "There are no trees, and I can barely see the sky. I can only imagine how those asphalt-lined streets must reek of filth." Even through his lecture, he didn't stop moving. I suddenly realised, as a bolt of lightning flashed overhead, that the motions I'd taken for an old form of yoga, or possibly a set of katas were actually motions he would have used while engaging in swordplay. He glided forward and turned, parrying his imaginary opponent in four, then six, before landing the final, forceful riposte.

"Sanitation's come a long way since your nose was last in commission," I stated, picking up the thread of conversation again. "There's far less human and animal waste, and a lot more dust and smoke." He started toward me, still flickering wherever the rain hit, and I held up a hand to stop him. "Hey, hold up a minute."

He paused, giving me quite a quizzical look. "Something the matter?"

I shook my head. "Just indulge a morbid curiosity, yeah?" I could see him bite down a retort, likely about how all my curiosity is morbid, when it's not busy being prurient. Nevertheless, he stood still, expression amused as he glowed golden in the downpour. Calling forth a small effort of will, I floated the skull up to his eye-level, turning it so it settled into the image of his head. When he realised what I was doing, he gave me a soft smile, tipping his head this way and that so I could match the bone to his movements.

I'd just opened my mouth to remark how I could see him in the skull when the bolt hit. It was like time had frozen, the branches of energy forked above and around us. It slammed into us both, finding the ground through Bob's magic and my body. I saw his back arch, eyes huge, and he gleamed white instead of gold as the energy shot through us, and then everything went out.

When it passed, we were both sprawled out on our faces, knocked away by the shockwave. When a normal person gets hit by lightning, it burns his skin and messes with his nervous system, depending on how deep inside the body it goes. When wizards get hit, it not only messes with our nervous systems, but gives us the equivalent of a gallon of nitro in our 'magic tank.' I should have been feeling invincible, crackling with energy that would be blown off the first time I tried to cast. Most magic-users, if they get hit, know to weave the simplest, smallest, most non-destructive spell they can in order to bleed off that extra energy, since it can't be controlled. That wasn't necessary for me; instead of feeling powerful, I felt like I'd been up for a week straight, and I couldn't hear a damned thing.

The energy of the bolt had knocked out the dryness charm, and it wasn't long before I was soaked. I looked up at Bob, who'd regained his feet, and was surprised to see his glow gone. He moved his mouth; I guess he was asking me a question, since he waited, furrowed his brow, and moved his lips again. I blinked at him confusedly and reached up to touch my ear. There was a trickle of something stickier than rain, and I pulled my hand away to see the blood on my fingertips rendered black by the dim, reflected light of the city. I rubbed it lightly with my thumb, and then held my hand up to Bob in silent explanation. The strike had burst my eardrums.

He worried his lower lip with his teeth and moved forward, hands hovering on either side of my head. As his voice faded in, I noticed that some of the thick, wet droplets cascading around us were rolling off Bob's forehead. My eyes widened as they splashed me in the face, rolling down his nose and onto mine until they were no longer droplets, but thick streams. His hair drooped under the weight of the liquid, plastering to his head, and his dark clothes grew even darker as the moisture seeped into them. "I said," he intoned with a note of impatience, "are you all right?"

"Hell's bells, Bob; you're wet!" Despite the residual pain, my grin was wide and exultant, and I felt a surge of joy as powerful as the bolt that had just hit. I could only stare up at him with a stupidly happy look, muscles quivering to leap up and hug him, though I could see his expression darken as I ignored his inquiry. I don't always respond appropriately to questions, and my outburst seemed to frustrate him.

"I cannot have lost the ability to muster a simple healing spell," he muttered, and opened his mouth to begin the cant again.

"No, wait; Bob, I can hear you just fine!" I put my hands on his wrists, felt my fingers slipping apart to accommodate the manacles that still resided there. I was touching him. Touching Bob. He wasn't dead, wasn't going to knock me out and tie me up. He was there with me. Warm. Alive. Soaked to the skin. "And, you're solid. Stars and stones, I can actually touch you!" So I tend to babble when I'm excited. Sue me.

It caused Bob to grin as I beamed back at him, but the look of calm affection quickly slipped as I pulled him down to me, absorbing the impact of his weight. We poked and jabbed at each other quite by accident; lean men like Bob and me are all angles and elbows, without the soft padding breasts and hips would provide. Even so, we managed, kneeling on the ground with our thighs staggered between each other's. We stayed there in the pouring rain for I don't know how many minutes, just looking, his hands on my upper arms, and mine on either side of his waist. Finally, the cold and wet got to him, and he began to squirm. "We're in the mud, Harry."

"You wanted grass," I smarted off with a grin.

I could tell he had been about to make some wiseass retort, but another flash of lightning arced against the sky and he gasped, eyes going wide. When the thunder followed, he shivered, and his fingers dug into my shoulders.

I am not the kind of guy who can resist such a blatant invitation. I pushed myself forward as I pulled him in, letting our mouths brush. I figured I'd give him an out in case he really didn't want this. He didn't push me away, but leaned toward me with a soft noise of want that galvanised me. I'd been waiting for this chance for decades, and pressed closer, opening to kiss him more fully. I couldn't blame him for wanting; he felt the force of the storm keenly. He smelled a bit like wet dog, though rangier somehow, and I wondered if the scent of wolf had lingered on him throughout the ages.

The kiss took its own course; thinking back on it, I'm not sure either Bob or I had control of it. It seemed to grow on its own in the rain, the pouring moisture and cloying heat of a Midwest summer feeding it until we were pressed up close together, tongues battling like the swords Bob had been pretending to wield earlier. I felt his groan more than heard it, the rumble in his chest transferring as it held close to mine. I don't remember when we began clinging, his hands under my arms to curl up over my shoulders, and my hands clasped at the small of his back. All I knew was that Bob was hot and real under my hands, and sweet Jesus God, he was moving against me, taking friction against my thigh just like I was against his.

"God, Harry…" he rasped on an indrawn breath when he pulled away from the kiss to breathe. "We shouldn't…"

"Muzzle it, Bob," I growled. I wasn't about to lose this chance, not when we had benefit of a full storm all around us. "Just veil us, for Chrissake. Don't wanna get hauled down to the district station just because some beat cop's decided to be stupid and take a stroll around this sodden place."

There was a pause between us, only the rumble of the thunder and the rustle of the wind sounding as we rocked against each other. "N… no," he murmured, looking quite shocked as he said it. "No, I won't veil us; I want to be able to see you, Harry."

It was then that I realised the geas had been broken, and the man I held, Hrothbert of Bainbridge, was a whole man in his own right once again. That knowledge sent a jolt through me stronger than that damned lightning strike, and I shivered. I wasn't holding onto a slave or a ghost, or some freak of magic--I was holding onto Bob. My Bob. "This isn't the Forest and Manor of Bainbridge, Bob," I reminded him. I leaned forward, resting my forehead against his as our hips ground together. "Anyone could happen on us at any time."

"Bollocks." I had to fight a laugh when he practically spat that, though a look into his lust-dilated eyes quenched most any humour I'd found in the words. He muttered a moment, and when I felt a circle close, I looked around us in surprise. He gentled my shoulders in his hands, rolling his fingers as he bent his elbow more to keep me held tight. "It's all right, I simply found one in the nature around us, and joined it. None shall see us unless I will it."

God love all pissy former necromancers. Strike that--God love Bob, though not as much as I do. His power gave me a heady charge, not any power over me, but just knowing what he was capable of sent me right up to the edge. I freed one of my hands to reach between us, fumbling with his belt buckle until it gave way so I could wiggle my fingers inside the sodden cloth to take hold of him. A prayer and my name left his lips, and his eyes closed halfway as he bucked into my hand. I have never in my life seen anything so beautiful as Bob when he's on a sexual tear, and I don't think I ever will. He lapses into Old English and a smattering of French when he's far gone, and it's hard for me to pick out all the words. However, when his hips begin to fetch up quick and sharp, and his fingers dig into my muscles, I don't need words to tell me he's tipped over, shaking and shuddering in my arms. I couldn't hold it, watching him, and leaned into him just as his breathing began to slow, murmuring his name in a mantra as I exulted in being able to hold him.

There was a crackle of energy as he dropped the circle around us, and I withdrew my hand to straighten his clothes as best I could. The water would hide the evidence of our issue until we could get home and cleaned up properly, and it occurred to me suddenly that the storm wasn't so bad after all. With reluctance on both our parts, we slowly loosened our grip and sat back in our awkward postures, unsure of our next steps. It was silly to worry; it didn't change much between us, and nothing for the worse. On the contrary, every morning I wake up holding onto him is a morning I wake up finally happy, and I give thanks every day to whatever deity decided to grant me such a gift.

"So… what do we do now?" he asked, eyes not quite meeting mine. "We'll have to tell the Council--"

"The Council can wait a damn night at the very least, Bob. You have a lot of time to make up for, and I'm not gonna take that from you just so Ancient Mai can have her little bitch fit." I shook my head adamantly, and reached out to nab his wrist. Pulling him in for a hug, I hummed in what I hoped was a soothing manner. "Right now, we're gonna go home, order takeout from Olive Garden, and then go get cleaned up so we can spend the night filling you with as much sensation as your brain'll handle."

"We're going to go in and peel off these wet clothes… just to get wet again?"

_Jesus God, Bob, you need to not say stuff like that when I'm itching to see you naked,_ I grumped to myself. "Yeah, but a shower's a good wet, and when it's done, we'll be dry… and not-muddy."

He pulled back a bit, laughing. I didn't get to see that very often, and while it lasted, I didn't feel the rain or the mud or the storm at all. "I'm all for not-muddy at the moment. Let's go home, Harry. I'm hungry."


End file.
